NJ government holding $4.7 billion that people haven’t claimed yet

New Jersey's Treasury Department has been reaching out to veterans and widows in the state to reconnect state-held assets with their rightful owners.

Marc Marseglia, chief of staff of the state Treasury's Unclaimed Property Administration, said the most common assets are bank accounts, utility deposits and insurance proceeds.

He says the outreach program, which started in November, has returned more than $200,000 from 133 approved claims.

"The current outreach initiative is targeting military families. We were able to take publicly available data of New jersey veterans and compare them with our unclaimed property database. The resulting matches gave a mailing list of New Jersey veterans who likely have unclaimed property."

Outside of this new initiative, the overall return of unclaimed assets in New Jersey is much higher. The state has returned more than $1.7 billion and has another $4.7 billion to go.